QUESTION

ANSWER

Before stairs are created, make sure that the heights for both the lower and upper floors are correctly defined.

Stairs are drawn going UP, so they should be drawn from the lower of the two floors they connect.

Stairs adjust their riser and tread dimensions to connect two floor heights if possible. The rise and run are calculated so that the steps are consistent in size.

If you have the Reference Floor Display turned on, stairs will snap to the reference display. To turn on Reference Floor Display, from the menu select Tools> Reference Floors> Reference Floor Display.

If a stairwell room has been defined on the floor above, the top of the stairs can be dragged until it stops at the railing, or wall, defining the stairwell.

Creating automatic stairwells is easy in Home Designer programs, and first, we will need to create a stairway.

To create a staircase

First, launch Home Designer and choose to Open the plan in which you want to create a stairwell.

If there is not already a stair in the plan, select Build> Stairs> Straight Stairs

Click and drag from the beginning of your stairs drawing up to the floor above.

If you need to adjust the position or length of the stairs after they have been created, use the Select Objects tool to select the newly created stair and use its edit handles to adjust it until it is at the correct location in your plan.

To create a stairwell

Once you have your stairway drawn and placed in the correct location select the stairway and click on the Auto Stairwell edit button.

Move Up one floor to observe that a stairwell has been created.

You may want to create a Camera view of the stairwell to view it in 3D.

Once the stairwell has been generated, you can select and edit the railings encompassing the Stairwell room to change them to solid, adjust their height, materials, or make any other desired changes.

Keep in mind that if the automatically generated stairwell doesn't suit your needs, you can either modify it, or even manually draw an Open Below room and define the Room Name as Stairwell.

Note: There are two situations where the Auto Stairwell tool is not available:

The Auto Stairwell tool has already been clicked

The stairs have been placed under a room already specified as Open Below